


Only Stings A Lot

by benicemurphy



Series: AUgust prompt fills [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Getting Back Together, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Post-Break Up, Reunions, mentions of illness (unspecified)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benicemurphy/pseuds/benicemurphy
Summary: Prompt: Tattoo Artist AU for Cruel <3“Shiro?” The question comes out choked. Shiro doesn’t work here. Shiro works at Paladin Ink. Shiro is the whole reason he stopped going to Paladin Ink.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: AUgust prompt fills [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885945
Comments: 56
Kudos: 193





	Only Stings A Lot

“Keith, come on! You know I’m a fragile man baby who can’t handle physical pain!”

Keith glares at his best friend. “You’ve broken like, four different bones. How is it possible you can’t handle a little needle?”

“Okay, first of all,” Matt starts, sitting up where he’s been dramatically sprawled across the floor, “those were accidents. Nobody sets out to break bones on purpose. Second, it is not ‘a little needle,’ it is several needles all bunched up together and then repeatedly stabbed into my skin in rapid succession for a very long period of time.”

“It’s only multiple needles part of the time,” Keith grouses. “You seriously can’t do this by yourself? You’re a grown man, Matt. You don’t need someone in there holding your hand.”

“Yes I _do_ ,” Matt whines. “Besides, without you there I’ll be so _bored_.”

Keith sighs. There’s no point in arguing when he’s known from the beginning that he’s going to give in anyway. “Fine. But only because I finished bingeing that ghost show yesterday, and I don’t know what else I want to watch.”

“The ‘why’ matters not, kitten! I knew you’d come around. Let’s go!” He pops up off of the floor like one of those rubber cap popper toys Keith had when he was a kid.

“What— _now_?”

“Yeah, my appointment is in like, twenty minutes. Shake a leg! Don’t wanna be late!”

Keith can do nothing but shake his head in disbelief and follow behind Matt, who has already grabbed Keith’s keys and is halfway out the door.

It only takes twelve minutes to get to the place where Matt has made his appointment. It’s completely empty save for themselves and the artists who work there, but that’s pretty normal for eleven A.M. on a Monday.

“Fill this out,” the girl behind the counter says, handing Matt the form he has to sign that states that he’s a consenting adult and not at all drunk. “I’ll come get you when we’re ready.” She nods at Keith before she turns to go. “Love the phoenix,” she says. “Very cool. Great colors.” Then she’s gone, likely to inform Matt’s artist that their appointment is here.

Keith self-consciously moves to cover his tattoo. He loves it — truly, deeply loves this particular tattoo — but the memories attached to it are still painful, even after more than five years.

“I think she likes you,” Matt teases.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Shove it.” The colors really _are_ beautiful. And in a deep, dorky, totally cheesy way, he thinks the phoenix symbolizes him even better now than it did before. Before, it was about living life fast and burning as bright as possible. Now, though, it’s about burning out, rebirth, and making something new from the ashes.

It just kind of sucks that the whole reason he had to rebuild himself in the first place happens to be the same person who inked it on his skin.

“Who’s your artist, anyway?” Keith asks.

“Why? Know every tattoo artist in the city by now?”

Keith frowns. “No. Just curious if I’ve heard of them.”

“Can’t remember,” Matt shrugs. “Some new guy. They showed me his portfolio when I came in, and it looked pretty amazing. So I made the appointment on the spot, and then I forgot his name.”

“Real nice,” Keith says.

Matt just shrugs again. “Doesn’t matter. He’s good.”

“I’m sure he is.”

The girl from the front desk pops her head back through the door. “You ready?”

Matt nods and waves his consent form in the air. She nods her head toward the back, indicating that he should get up and follow, so he does. Keith stands and moves to do the same, and she eyeballs him. “You here for a tattoo or moral support?”

“Moral support,” he says. “My friend is a big fragile man baby.”

She nods like she already knows as much and leads them both to an empty station.

“Shiro will be here in just a sec,” she says. “He’s just washing up. Hang tight and don’t touch anything.”

“Shiro?” The question comes out choked. Shiro doesn’t work here. Shiro works at Paladin Ink. Shiro is the whole reason he stopped going to Paladin Ink.

The girl gives him a funny look, which makes sense considering most people know who their artist is when they make the appointment, but this isn’t Keith’s appointment, and he definitely wouldn’t have agreed to come if he had known who the artist was going to be.

He stands to make a break for it, but Matt catches him by the arm. “Dude, what are you doing?”

“I gotta get out of here,” he says. He tugs against Matt’s hold, but Matt doesn’t let up.

“What? No way! You promised!”

“I didn’t promise,” Keith growls. “You made me come here. Now let me go so I can get the hell out of here.”

“What is your _damage_ , Keith? He’ll be here in like thirty seconds. Whatever you just realized you want to watch on TV can wait an hour, can’t it?”

The design Matt wants will take more than an hour, for sure.

“ _No_.” He yanks his arm from Matt’s grip with a valiant tug and turns, only to nearly smack into the man he’s been trying to avoid. It’s a near miss.

“Keith.” Shiro looks as stunned as Keith feels. It’s a smack in the face to see him again, especially since it seems like he’s only gotten more attractive. “Are you… my appointment?”

Keith shakes his head and hitches a thumb over his shoulder at Matt. He can’t find it in himself to speak yet. He doesn’t trust his voice not to crack like a teenager whose balls haven’t dropped yet.

“Oh.” Shiro’s expression does something complicated. He gives Keith a vaguely concerned look, then steps around him to introduce himself to Matt.

Fucking great. He can’t leave now or Shiro will know he’s running away.

“Water,” he mutters, and escapes to the front where Shiro can’t see him.

He sits on the chairs near the door with his head in his hands. He can’t leave, but if he stays, there’s a good chance he’s going to have a panic attack. He’s not prepared for this. He thought he’d be safe staying away from the shop Shiro helped open, but apparently not.

“Hey, you okay?”

Keith nearly jumps out of his skin at the voice. He hadn’t heard anyone approach. He looks up to see the girl from earlier. She’s still giving him a funny look, but now it’s less ‘I think you might be a moron’ and more ‘I’m prepared to call an ambulance or the cops, depending on how you respond.’

“Fine,” Keith says. At least he can still talk when Shiro’s _not_ around.

“I, uh, recognized your tattoo from Shiro’s portfolio. I kinda figured you knew…”

Keith huffs a humorless laugh. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

There’s an awkward silence in which the girl clearly has no idea what to say. Keith almost feels bad; she seems nice, and she’s trying, but he really doesn’t know how to deal with this situation.

The girl comes and sits next to him. “I’m Acxa, by the way.”

“Keith. And you don’t need to babysit me. I just need some air.”

“Well, most of the air is outside,” Acxa says.

Keith sighs heavily. “I can’t go outside or it’ll look like I’m running away.”

Acxa pauses. “…Aren’t you?”

“ _No_ ,” Keith says. “I’m just…” He’s got nothing. He’s absolutely running away.

“May I ask why?”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it when I’m gone,” Keith mutters, which is maybe not fair, because Shiro isn’t the type to gossip about anyone, especially Keith.

“Okay then. How about some water?” Acxa offers.

Keith nods. “That would be great.”

She grabs a bottle from the mini fridge and hands it to him. “You better get back in there if you’re not running away. Keep your fragile baby friend company.”

He does his best to smile at the joke and stands. She’s right. He can do this. He can _so_ do this.

The stencil is drying on Matt’s skin by the time he gets back.

“I see you got your _water_ ,” Matt quips, raising an unamused eyebrow. “Glad you could join us.”

“Sorry, Teacher,” Keith says, rolling his eyes at his overdramatic friend. “I didn’t know I needed a hall pass to go get water.”

Shiro is arranging his instruments, mercifully not looking at Keith or commenting on anything at all. He has a new tattoo sticking out of the sleeve of his shirt, but Keith can’t make out what it is. He wonders who did it. It looks different from Shiro’s other tattoos, though Keith knows Shiro has always enjoyed having his friends tattoo him.

“What do you think?” Matt asks, attempting and failing to flex pecs that are not there. The stencil is right over his heart.

“It’s gonna look good,” Keith says, because it is, and because Matt is excited, and he needs to stop focusing on his still-broken heart and start focusing on being a supportive friend.

“It is,” Shiro agrees. “You picked a good design.”

And just like that, he’s chatting with Matt like the excellent tattoo artist he is.

It was one of the things that made Keith fall for him; he’s not just devilishly handsome— he has a quality that makes people feel completely safe and at ease in his presence. He’s charismatic, but gentle; confident, but humble; supportive, but understands boundaries. And Keith had met him when he’d needed him most— at a time when Keith had nothing and no one, Shiro felt like home.

He’s been living without a home for five years now, but it’s nothing he wasn’t already used to.

“Actually, I got the idea from my sister,” Matt is saying in response to some question Shiro asked him about his design. “We’ve both always been really big tech nerds, you know? Something we’ve always bonded over.”

The line work is fairly simple. From what Keith understands, the design is based on some weird animation that Matt and Pidge like to troll each other with. Pidge designed it, but it’s now used by everyone in the Holt family.

The brunt of the work will be coloring the tattoo. It’s going to be a watercolor splash with the lined logo stamped overtop. It makes sense that Matt chose Shiro for this. Shiro’s coloring, especially his watercoloring, is why he’s able to book clients a year out.

“That’s really cool,” Shiro says. “So in a way, it’s sort of like a family crest.”

Matt laughs. “Sort of. I don’t think I’m gonna get her in here for a matching one any time soon, though.”

“Not a fan of needles?” Shiro is wearing that easy smile that Keith remembers from countless hours in the chair.

“Nah, she’s not afraid of anything. I just don’t think you could get her to sit still long enough.”

Shiro grins. “She sounds fun.”

“She’s a demon, and I love her.”

“That’s sweet,” Shiro says. His tone is wistful.

Keith knows that Shiro always wanted a brother. He remembers Shiro telling him, in hushed tones in the black of night, with nothing but the light of the stars and the sounds of rustling leaves outside the window, that he was supposed to have a twin, but that his twin had been absorbed in the womb sometime during his mother’s pregnancy. It was something Shiro had never told anyone before. Keith remembers that Shiro has secretly always blamed himself, even though that’s ridiculous.

He shakes himself out of his reverie as he realizes something. “Wait a second—” he says, interrupting whatever conversation they’ve moved onto. “Didn’t you book this appointment like, a month ago?”

Matt raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? So?”

Keith can’t believe what he’s hearing. He’s never met anyone that got an appointment with Shiro sooner than six months after booking. “ _How_?”

“I… asked?”

Shiro clears his throat and answers — without looking at Keith, though that’s to be expected since he’s currently tattooing someone’s body — “I had a cancellation the same day Matt booked me. Good timing.”

Matt looks between the two of them like he’s missing something. Which, of course, he is.

“I’m lucky enough to have a steady client base,” Shiro explains tactfully. Always so fucking tactful.

“How did you know that?” Matt asks Keith. “Do you guys know each other?”

There’s a loaded, tense pause before Keith holds up his arm for Matt to see. “He did my phoenix.”

“Oh,” Matt says. He still looks confused, and like he’s about to say something else, but Shiro cuts him off before he can.

“Alright, let’s take a little break here,” he says, setting the tattoo gun back on the table. “Stand up, stretch your legs, get some water, then come back.”

Matt stands to do as he’s told. He shakes out his legs and moseys back to the front of the shop, presumably to search for water. He’s very good at following instructions.

Shiro fiddles with his tools for a few seconds, shooting a nervous glance in Keith’s direction once or twice before Keith can’t take it anymore and stands to go… somewhere else. Shiro stands, too, stretches out his arms, and heads toward the bathroom without a word.

Keith knows he can’t go wherever Matt is, because he’s not willing to be grilled about this particular issue right now where Shiro or any of his coworkers could hear them. But there’s nowhere else to go, so he reluctantly sits back down and prays that Matt comes back before Shiro.

Of course, he’s never been lucky.

Shiro comes back shortly after, and if he’s surprised or disappointed to find Keith still sitting there, he does a good job of hiding it. They’re thrown back into another uncomfortable silence. Keith isn’t sure how long he can take it.

Shiro must feel the same way, because he says, “I just started here a couple of months ago. My cancellation was a Paladin loyal.”

“Oh,” Keith says. “That sucks.”

Shiro shrugs. “It’s fine. Sucks to lose a booking, but it was going to be our first session. So it’s not like I lost a regular or anything.”

“Well, good.” They’re quiet again, but now that they’ve spoken, the silence feels so much worse. So Keith forges on. They were good at this, once upon a time. “Why did you leave?”

Shiro shifts, fidgeting with things on his worktable that don’t need to be fiddled with. “Let’s just call it creative differences.”

Keith raises an eyebrow at him. “Cryptic.”

Shiro huffs out a breathy laugh. “I don’t know. We had all of these amazing artists there, and after a while, it just felt like I didn’t have a place there anymore. Then this place opened up, and I saw the type of work the artists here were doing, and I just…”

He trails off, but Keith can put the pieces together. Still, he feels sad for Shiro that he lost a place that had meant so much to him. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s true.

“Don’t be,” Shiro says. “I haven’t been here long, but it feels like a good fit.”

Keith doesn’t say anything to that, just nods his head and waits for Matt to come back.

“Your phoenix could use a touch-up,” Shiro says after another brief silence. “I could take care of it.”

Keith shakes his head. The idea of Shiro putting his hands on him, even in a professional way, is too overwhelming to even consider. It’s why he stopped going to see him. “I didn’t bring any money,” Keith says, partly because it’s true, and partly because he doesn’t intend to take any handouts from anyone, especially Shiro.

“Don’t worry about it,” Shiro says. “It’s just a touch-up. I can do it as soon as we finish up your friend.”

“Do what?” Matt says, picking the absolute wrong moment to come back, of course.

“Touch up Keith’s tattoo,” Shiro explains. “It’s fading in a couple of spots, so I offered to fix it up.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea! Add it to my tab. I owe Keith for being such a wonderful friend and coming to hold my hand.”

Matt’s grin is sunny and unbearable. How is Keith supposed to say no now?

“Whatever,” Keith grumbles. “And I’m not holding your hand.”

Shiro looks between the two of them with a question in his eyes, but he keeps quiet about whatever he’s thinking.

“So, Shiro,” Matt says once he’s settled back down in the chair and Shiro has gotten to work on him again. “Tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

Matt wisely waits until Shiro has removed the needle to ask, “Got anyone special in your life?”

Shiro coughs into his elbow like he’s choking on something, even though he’s not eating or drinking anything. “Um, well, my mom is pretty cool.”

Matt cackles so hard that Shiro has to ask him to hold still.

“Okay, next question then. How long have you been a tattoo artist?”

Shiro blows out a relieved breath. Keith watches his shoulders drop, tension lessoning as the questioning turns away from his personal life. “About ten years,” he answers. “It wasn’t always my plan, but plans change, you know? And I’ve always liked art and been pretty good at it, and I managed to score an apprenticeship when I was young and needed some direction, and now I can’t really imagine doing anything else.”

“That’s cool,” Matt says. “I’ve always kinda known I was going to end up in the sciences, whichever one I took to best, and here I am.”

Shiro hums. “What do you do?”

“Bioinformatics.” At Shiro’s raised eyebrow, he explains, “Basically just analyzing and interpreting biological data. I love it because I get to use computer science and biology every day.”

“Sounds… fun.”

Keith can’t help but snort. That was the same response he gave when he met Matt three years ago and found out what he did.

Matt grins, too, because he knows it sounds dull to everyone else. Keith has always admired that about him; he does what he loves and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about that.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t do my job anymore,” Matt says. “I really admire people like you guys, who can just switch paths and be totally okay.”

Shiro looks at Keith then, full on and shocked.

“You’re not doing the space exploration program anymore?”

Keith pales. He still hates talking about this. “Um. No. I’m a blacksmith now.”

“…A blacksmith? Places still have those?”

Keith chuckles uncomfortably. “Yeah, not the kind you see in movies starring, like, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the dirty, grizzled town loner, or whatever. I’m not forging ancient swords used for battles of honor… That would be cool though.” Shiro chuckles. The sound makes Keith’s heart flip over. “I just, uh, mostly do custom metalwork for people. Truck boxes, music stands, cauldrons, armor… That kind of thing.”

“Wow, that’s really cool, Keith,” Shiro says, and though he sounds sincere, there’s a sadness in his eyes that Keith wishes he could unsee.

“ _Yep_ ,” he says, popping the p.

Shiro turns back to work on Matt. “When did you start doing that?”

“Um, about… four years ago.”

Shiro is quiet for a long, long moment, then swallows audibly. “Wow.”

Whatever he’s drawn from that piece of information, Keith doesn’t like it. He’s taken great pains to create a new life for himself away from the one Shiro left behind.

“He’s pretty amazing,” Matt interjects. “That’s actually how we met. I needed someone to make a gift for my sister for her high school graduation, and he was the only person in the state who could do it. Pretty lucky that he ended up being right here in town.”

“Yeah, lucky,” Shiro says. He sounds faraway.

The buzzing of the needle permeates the air around them as the conversation reaches a lull.

Keith squirms uncomfortably. This isn’t how he expected his day to go. He’s starting to feel a little lightheaded.

“I need some air,” he says, and retreats outside.

Out here, it’s easier to let himself feel. He sinks down against the wall, buries his face in his knees, and breathes. He tries to tell himself the same things he’s told himself for the past five years.

_I am better off on my own._

_I am doing what I love. I have no one to answer to but myself. I can do whatever I want with my life._

_I am better off on my own._

_I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone. I only need to take care of myself._

_I am better off on my own._

He breathes, and breathes, and breathes, but it’s impossible to ignore how lonely he’s been since Shiro left. Even after meeting Matt and Pidge and the rest of the Holt family, he’s never been able to fill the empty hole in his heart.

The door opens behind him, and for a moment he hopes— _dreads_ —that it might be Shiro, but it’s just Acxa. She comes and sits next to him again. He’s not sure why she feels the need to be kind to him, but that’s her prerogative.

She clears her throat to draw Keith’s attention and says, without prompting, “Shiro doesn’t actually have the phoenix in his portfolio. I lied.”

Keith looks up at that, confused and intrigued. “Why?”

She looks uncomfortable. “I saw it on his instagram from a few years ago. I asked him why he didn’t include it after he started working here, and he clammed up really fast. I figured it must have some personal meaning for him, so I didn’t ask again.” She looks at Keith, scrutinizing. “I’m guessing I was right.”

He nods.

“I know you don’t know me,” she says, “but I can keep a secret. I won’t tell Shiro or anyone else. You just look like you could use someone to talk to.”

Maybe it’s because she’s a stranger, or maybe it’s because he believes her when she says she can keep a secret, and maybe he just _really_ needs to talk to someone who won’t judge him, but he finds himself opening up.

“We used to date,” he says. “We were friends first, though. I was young when we met, and Shiro wasn’t interested in me like that.” He sighs, remembering what it felt like to have an unrequited puppy crush on his cool, older best friend. “He was already tattooing when we met, and he gave me my first one when I turned eighteen.” He rolls up his pant leg to show her the lioness on his calf. It looks more classic, just a black outline with minimal shading.

“His style has really changed,” she comments.

“Yeah. It was really cool watching him figure it out. I was always so proud of him.”

“That’s sweet.” There’s a pause, and Acxa has to prod him to continue. “So what happened?”

“He helped me get into the space program. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into school anywhere. I was a tough kid, you know? Always getting into fights, didn’t give a shit about showing up for school. But Shiro was a good influence. He got me to keep going, to study, to work toward something. So I did it. And a little while after I started there, he told me he felt the same way and was ready for us to be together. Happiest time of my life.” He swallows there. The hard part is coming. He’s never told anyone about this before. Shiro was his only friend back then, and after he left, there was no one left for Keith to talk to.

Acxa just waits. He doesn’t feel pressured to talk to her, but he feels like he should. He’s kept it bottled up for too long.

“So we were together for three years, and then one day, he told me he couldn’t do it anymore. I never saw it coming. I just— I thought we were so happy, you know?” He can feel the hot sting of tears behind his eyes and hates himself for still getting so upset about this, so many years after the fact. “I thought I was going to spend my life with him. And then he was just… gone.”

“He never told you why?”

He looks up at Acxa from where his eyes had dropped to examine the pavement. He can’t read her expression.

“No.”

She’s quiet for a while. Keith doesn’t know what to make of her silence, but it’s easy enough to just not talk, so that’s what he does. Finally, she stands. “I’m sorry that happened,” she says. “That sucks.” She offers him a hand up, but he shakes his head. “Don’t hang out here too long,” she advises. “We don’t usually like people loitering outside the shop.”

He nods. “Thanks for listening,” he says. She’s halfway through the door so she pauses, nods, and then leaves him be.

Keith stops to look at his tattoo — really look at it — for the first time in a long time. The lines have started to fade a little on the end closer to his wrist, and the colors have dulled with time. It _could_ use a refresher. In truth, he could probably ask Kolivan to do it, but having a different artist touch up Shiro’s work feels like a major betrayal.

Looking at it like this, he’s flooded with the memory of having it done. It was just a few weeks before Shiro broke it off between them. He remembers how Shiro had paid such loving attention to detail when he was designing it, how he positioned the stencil two or three times to make sure it was in exactly the right spot, even though it meant having to wash it off and redo it every time. He remembers Shiro telling him, “This really suits you, Keith. It’s going to be so beautiful. Just like you.”

He remembers the urge to go get it covered up a few weeks later, left alone in his apartment with nothing else around to remind him of Shiro, because Shiro had boxed it all up and taken it away while Keith was at school so that he wouldn’t have to come back.

Keith clenches his fist and watches the way it makes the phoenix move, almost like it’s spreading its wings.

It deserves better than to fade away.

With new resolve, he steels himself and goes back inside.

Shiro and Matt both have the good grace not to ask him if he’s okay, though knowing the two of them, they both want to. He wonders if they talked about him while he was gone, like Keith talked about Shiro. He’s not sure if he hopes they did or hopes they didn’t.

“You’re very bad moral support,” Matt says when he sits down again. “It’s a good thing Shiro is so calming and likable, otherwise I’d probably be very mad at your for ditching me. Again.”

Keith rolls his eyes while Shiro chuckles. “You can come by yourself next time, then.”

Matt huffs. “Maybe I will.” He eyeballs Keith like he expects a fight, but Keith doesn’t feel like fighting, playfully or otherwise. “Are you gonna tell Kolivan on me?”

“Yes,” Keith answers immediately. “I’m gonna tell him you’re a traitor for going to someone else after all of the time you’ve spent at his shop.”

“Don’t!” Matt whines. “He already hates me!”

“He’s gonna hate you more, now.”

“Kolivan?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah,” Keith says, forcing himself not to blush or otherwise make it weirder than it already is. “He’s done my last few.”

“Where does he work?”

“The Blade. It’s a ways out of town.”

“Oh, cool.” Shiro clicks off the gun and leans back. “Alright, bud. You’re all done. Go check it out.”

Matt practically leaps out of the chair to go check himself out. Shiro watches him as he twists around in the mirror to see his new ink from several angles. Matt’s grin lights up his whole face, and Shiro’s answering proud smile lights up Keith’s insides.

“It looks really beautiful,” Keith tells Shiro. “Your work always does.”

“Thanks,” Shiro says. The tips of his big ears are pink. He’s always been too humble for how amazing he is. “So, am I doing you today, too?”

Keith’s eyes blow wide, and he feels his face flame before he registers what Shiro means. “Oh, uh.” He clears his throat and shrugs. “I guess. If Matt’s paying.”

“I’ll charge him exactly what I’d charge anyone for a touch-up,” Shiro says. “Promise.”

“Fine.”

“Okay, hop up. I just need a few minutes to finish up with Matt.”

Keith leans back and closes his eyes. He definitely wasn’t planning on doing this today, but he’s here now and he’s not backing down.

Matt comes back, tattoo wrapped and face beaming. “Pidge is gonna be so jealous.”

Keith can’t help the amused smile the thought elicits. “For a few minutes,” he says. “Until you tell her you sat here for two hours getting it done.”

“True. But it looks cool!”

“It does look cool,” Keith agrees. “I like the colors you guys chose.”

“Me too.” Matt slumps in the chair where Keith previously sat. “So you’re getting yours touched up after all?”

Keith nods. “It needs it.”

“Welp,” Matt says, clapping his hands on his thighs as he stands, “I’m gonna go attempt to flirt with the girl at the counter and leave you all by yourself while you get it done.” He shoots finger guns at Keith while he walks away. “As long as she’s into it.” He winks and is gone.

Shiro laughs under his breath as he takes his place. “He’s a real character.”

Keith’s smile is fond this time. “Yeah, he is. He’s a good guy.”

“Seems that way.” Shiro readies his tools. “So I guess you two aren’t…”

He lets Shiro hang for a minute while he decides how to answer. He decides on the truth. “No. Just friends.”

“Ah.” The familiar buzzing starts up again, and Keith is washed away in a river of nostalgia. It’s been so long so he’s felt Shiro’s hands on him in _any_ capacity, even longer since he’s sat in the chair and let Shiro decorate him. “And um, you’re not—”

“Shiro.”

“Hm?”

Keith takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Why do you care?”

The pleasant sting of the needle on his skin soothes away some of the low, throbbing heartache.

Shiro doesn’t answer for a while, which suits Keith fine. It doesn’t matter why he cares. It’s weird that he’s asking. It _sucks_ that he’s asking.

“I’m really sorry, Keith,” he says, finally. Keith closes his eyes and lets the words wash over him. He focuses on the tiny pinpricks of pain. At his non-answer, Shiro keeps going. “I never told you why I left, and that was… I’ve never forgiven myself for that.”

“So I guess we do still have something in common,” Keith snaps. He cracks an eye just to see Shiro’s crestfallen expression, and despite his own hurt, he still regrets hurting Shiro. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for how you feel,” Shiro murmurs. “I know I did the wrong thing. I’ve spent years wishing I could take it back.”

Keith’s heart thuds painfully in his chest. The swell of emotions makes him nauseous. “Don’t say that,” he hisses. “Don’t make me think—”

Shiro waits, but Keith doesn’t finish his thought. “Don’t make you think… what?”

Keith shakes his head angrily. He hopes Shiro can feel his glare down to his bones. “Just finish so I can get out of here and go back to my life. My life _without you_.”

It might be a cutting remark if not for the way his voice wobbles around the last two words and the way his eyes mist over.

Shiro removes the instrument from Keith’s skin and sets it down. “I can’t finish until we settle this.”

“You’re not being paid to resolve old conflicts. You’re being paid to fix my fading tattoo. The one you did _five years ago_. It’s ancient history. Just fix it.”

He feels too raw, now. He’s been holding all of this back for too long, and Shiro coming in and poking him where it hurts isn’t helping the strain on his thin thread of self-control.

“Keith, please. I need to say this, and I’m afraid if I don’t say it now, I’ll never get another chance.”

“You’re right to be afraid,” Keith says. “I should leave now so you know what it’s like when someone walks out and never speaks to you again.”

“Keith, _please_.”

Keith can remember Shiro begging for anything maybe twice in his life, and both of those instances were much graver than this. That’s the only reason why he stays.

“Fine. Talk. But finish while you’re talking so I can bolt when you’re done.”

Shiro nods. His lips curl into a wry smile. He picks up the instrument and resumes his work. “You have to stay still,” he warns. “Even if I say something you don’t like. I refuse to ruin this tattoo.”

“I’ll stay still,” Keith agrees.

“Okay.” Shiro takes a deep breath, clears his throat, and begins. “When we were together, I was so happy.” Already Keith wants to argue, but he bites his tongue. “I know you want to argue with me, but I was. All the way up until the end. I really loved you, Keith. I hope you know that.”

Keith lays his head back and closes his eyes again. At least this way, if tears actually do spill over this time, Shiro might not see them.

“But I was going through something… big. Really big. And I should have told you about it, not just because going through it without you was unbearably lonely, but because you deserved to know, and you deserved the chance to go through it with me, if you wanted to.”

“Whatever it was, I would have been there,” Keith says, resigned. “If you didn’t trust me enough to know that, then leaving was the right choice after all.”

“Keith, I trusted you. I swear. The problem was, if I told you what was going on, you would have uprooted your life for me. And I didn’t want that for you.”

Keith pauses for air. Shiro’s right, of course— no matter what, he would have done _anything_ for Shiro. He still would, if he’s being brutally honest with himself.

“So what happened? It had to have been something you could hide from me, since you obviously knew about it before we broke up.”

“I got sick,” Shiro says. “It was… a _really_ bad diagnosis. I needed to start treatment right away if I had _any_ chance of recovering. It was really brutal.” He pauses, breathing deeply and evenly, self-soothing. Keith hasn’t even recovered from the shock of the news by the time Shiro is able to keep going. “In some ways, I’m glad you weren’t there to see me like that. My hair turned grey, then fell out. I was always throwing up, physically weak, tired all the time.”

“I would have helped you,” Keith says fiercely. “Shiro, how could you keep something like this from me? I would have done _anything_ to help you through it. I can’t believe…!”

“I know,” Shiro sighs. “That’s why I chose to let you go. You only had one year of school left; I couldn’t risk pulling you away from that.”

Keith laughs bitterly. “Yeah, well, you see how well that turned out.” He swallows around the taste of bile rising in his throat. It’s been five years since then. His hair is white now, but it’s full and healthy. Does that mean…? “Wait, what happened? Are you…?”

“I’m fine,” Shiro says. His smile is sincere. “We got it in time. I’ve had to develop some new habits, and I go to the doctor often, but so far, I’m all clear.”

“Oh, Shiro, god, I’m so glad.” He doesn’t stop the tears from spilling this time. These are not tears of heartbreak; they’re tears of relief, tears of joy that Shiro is still here.

“I am, too,” Shiro says. “I have a lot of regrets about what I did to you, but I don’t regret giving you the chance at your dream. …So why…?”

“I… It just wasn’t in the cards for me.”

Shiro looks heartbroken. “But you were doing so well. It was your dream.”

Keith doesn’t tell Shiro that he had more than one dream that was shattered when he left. “Not all dreams come true,” he says instead, because that’s a truth with which he’s intimately familiar.

“Keith…”

He must have missed when Shiro stopped working, distracted as he was, but there’s no more buzzing, and there are no more pinpricks to distract from his emotional pain.

“Are you done?” Keith asks. Shiro just blinks at him. Keith motions to the tattoo.

“Oh. Yeah. It looks a lot better, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees. “Do you have to wrap it?”

“Just for a bit.”

Shiro wraps him up and escorts him to the front. Matt has apparently abandoned his flirting mission and is instead flipping through Acxa’s portfolio and asking her about every piece. Or maybe that’s his way of flirting. Keith wouldn’t be surprised.

“Okay, loverboy. Time to pay up.”

Matt’s cheeks blaze, which makes Keith believe maybe he _had_ given up on the flirting. Judging from Acxa’s unaffected disposition, that was probably a good idea.

“Keith,” Shiro says while Matt squares up with Acxa. “One last thing?”

Keith has half a mind to say no. He almost does. But it’s Shiro. And it’s been five years. And, god, he just… he still loves him. He’d still do anything Shiro asks.

So he nods and follows Shiro outside.

“Keith, I know I have no right to ask,” Shiro starts, ears red, “but I’ve never regretted anything more than I’ve regretted shutting you out. And if you’re not seeing anyone… I mean, if you’re free…”

The question feels like a punch to the gut. He’s completely winded when he says, “Are you seriously asking me out?”

Shiro shuffles uncomfortably but stands his ground, maintaining determined eye contact. “I’m asking you for a second chance. I know I don’t deserve it, but I… I _miss_ you, Keith. I’ve missed you every single day since I left. Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

“You didn’t lose me,” Keith whispers. “ _I_ lost _you_. I lost you, and I never even knew why.”

“I’m so sorry.” Shiro’s eyes are glassy. He glances back through the front windows of the shop. Matt is finishing up, which means they’re running out of time.

“I was completely lost after you left, Shiro. You just blew up my life and never looked back.”

“I did—!”

“But I didn’t know that! I just thought you got sick of me like everyone else in my life. Do you have any idea how much that hurt? Do you have any idea what our breakup did to me? You were my _only_ friend, Shiro. I didn’t just lose my boyfriend. I lost my whole _family_. I don’t know if I can put myself in a position to get hurt like that again.”

“Keith, please, if you give me another chance, I will _never_ hurt you again. I swear on everything I am. I won’t leave you again. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.”

Keith’s head is spinning. It feels like he’s been waiting all these years to hear Shiro say those words, and now he doesn’t know what to do about it. He has to think. He needs time. But if Shiro wants him back… If Shiro is standing here promising him forever… How could he _ever_ turn down an offer like that?

He has a chance to make one of his dreams come true.

And, well, Keith has never been one to shy away from a risk, especially where Shiro is involved…

“My phone number is the same,” Keith says. “Just… call me. We can talk about it.”

Shiro slumps in relief. “Yes. Of course. Absolutely. Keith, I’m so— I… Thank you. I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”

Keith huffs. He’s still completely thunderstruck, and to be honest, he’s sure he’s going to wake up tomorrow and think this is all a dream.

Matt bounces over to them. “Ready?” Keith nods. Matt puts his hand out for Shiro to shake. “Thanks again, man.”

“My pleasure,” Shiro answers. His face is still pink. He looks so cute. Keith takes a minute to just look at him and drink him in, something he hasn’t allowed himself to do the entire time he’s been here. He’s still ruggedly handsome, still charmingly sweet, still boyishly adorable.

Shiro turns to Keith then and offers a shy wave. “I’ll call you,” he says. Keith nods. “Tonight. After work.” Keith nods again and smiles. “Expect my call, Keith,” Shiro says as Matt and Keith make their way back to Keith’s car.

“What was that all about?” Matt asks once they’re back in the car. “You guys hit it off or something?”

“Something like that,” Keith says. His smile is helplessly fond. “I’ll tell you about it later, okay? I wanna see how it goes first.”

Matt rolls his eyes and shrugs. “Okay. But the longer you wait to tell me, the more tempted I’ll be to get Pidge to look him up and find out about your weird cryptic past together.”

Keith barks out a laugh. He feels lighter than he has in years. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Shiro does call at exactly nine P.M. Keith can hear him locking up the shop and getting in his car to drive home.

“I know it’s late,” Shiro says, “but I was wondering if you’ve already had dinner?”

And, well, Keith can’t help it; he’ll do anything for Shiro.

“I could eat.”

**Author's Note:**

> [rubber popper toys](https://www.amazon.com/ArtCreativity-Poppers-Assorted-Impulse-Dropper/dp/B07D8JH4T3)


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